SERBIA: Students’ Edict Demonstration & more – 4th Mar 2025

Dobar dan from Keswick Village! This is the Rorshok Serbia Update from the 4th of March twenty twenty-five. A quick summary of what's going down in Serbia.

On Saturday the 1st, four months after the Novi Sad railway station tragedy, students of the southern city of Niš led the largest protest the city has seen so far, demanding justice for the victims. Saturday’s protest, titled Students’ Edict, gathered more than 200,000 people from all over Serbia. Certain groups of students ran marathons from different cities finishing in Niš , while others traveled to the city on foot. The protest lasted for eighteen hours and featured a choir of children, several speeches from students, and a ceremonial reading of an edict that students from the University of Niš wrote. They wrote provisions on freedom, state, justice, youth, dignity, knowledge, solidarity, and the future.

Recall that since the canopy's collapse on the 1st of November, university students have been blocking their faculties, pushing the government to find those responsible for the tragedy.

On the same day, the state-owned Radio Television of Serbia, or RTS, broadcasted a report on the protest, covered by an RTS journalist directly from Niš. In response to the broadcast, president Vučić called the reporter “an imbecile” during a rally he held in the eastern city of Bor on Sunday the 2nd, accusing her of catering to the opposition by reporting on the student protest.

The RTS Collegium called the president’s statement inappropriate, which made him apologize in a written statement that he published on the presidency’s website. However, several dozen media workers from Niš refused to accept Vučić’s apology, adding that they will not report on any presidential activities until he apologizes publicly in a speech.

Students voiced their support for the targeted journalist, as well as to the RTS staff who stood up against the slander of free media.

Meanwhile, the government has been carrying out a campaign against corruption, which has led to the arrests of many people in high positions. Two weeks ago, we spoke about the arrest of the head of the Emergency Toxicology Clinic of the Military Medical Academy, better known as VMA. This week, on Friday the 28th, the police arrested three more people - VMA’s management department head, the officer for public procurement of medicines, along with the CEO of two pharmacies in Belgrade.

The police accused the suspects of illegally making deals on medicine procurement with the VMA, making the two pharmacies the main suppliers for the VMA despite being there more favorable options. They are suspected to have cost the city’s budget around eleven million dinars, which is around 100,000 dollars.

Next up, several NGOs reported that police had raided their offices on Tuesday the 25th amid an ongoing investigation into the NGOs’ usage of funds from the US Agency for International Development or USAID. The police suspected the NGOs of misusing the money and committing crimes such as money laundering. Among the affected NGOs are the Center for Research, Transparency and Accountability, or CRTA, and Civic Initiatives - both famous for advocating for human rights, fair elections, and the rule of law.

CRTA highlighted that several pro-regime media published the story about the raid before it had even happened, which CRTA labeled as suspicious, since they did not publish anything saying if the police had found something during the raid. NGO Members believe that their organizations were targeted to silence their voices during the student protests, which are fighting against corruption.

Back in December, we reported on an investigation by the Balkan Insight Research Network, or BIRN, and Amnesty International, on the use of Cellebrite - a forensic technology used by the Serbian Intelligence agency BIA to spy on anti-government activists. On Tuesday the 25th, Cellebrite announced that it would be parting ways with some of its partners in Serbia, and stated that it was due to the misuse of their software, adding that the reported allegations go against their ethics and integrity policies.

While Cellebrite did not reveal the identities of the clients they stopped working with, both BIRN and Amnesty International believe that it is about BIA.

On Wednesday the 26th, the US Department of the Treasury announced that they had postponed the planned sanctions on the energy company NIS by thirty days. Recall that a month ago, the Ministry of Energy and the president asked the US to postpone the sanctions implementation by at least ninety days, so that Serbia would secure enough energy for its citizens during the winter.

However, the US announced that it would postpone the deadline by thirty days, imposing the sanctions on the 28th of March. NIS said that they would use this month to figure out how to acquire the majority ownership of NIS so that the sanctions are ultimately canceled

The US is planning to sanction NIS due to its largely-Russian ownership, as a way to target Russia’s main source of funds for the war in Ukraine.

Speaking of the war in Ukraine, media outlet Radio Free Europe, or RFE, reported on Tuesday the 25th that a Serbian soldier died in the war while illegally fighting for the Russian side. The Interior Ministry did not confirm nor deny whether the man died on the battlefield, despite his family actively confirming it online.

The RFE noted that there are around forty more cases of Serbian men fighting in the Russo-Ukrainian war, even though it is illegal for Serbian citizens to participate in a battle between foreign countries. However, information about them is being kept secret and is hard to find, due to the legal issues they might face.

Psychologist Jarmila Bujak Stanko, who has spoken to Serbian soldiers fighting in Ukraine, said that their main motive for aiding Russia in the war besides money is their conservative ideology and love for Russia.

Now, some news on the economy. The State Statistical Office published a report on Sunday the 2nd about the employment trends for the last quarter of twenty twenty-four. The number of employed people amounted to nearly three million, a year-on-year increase of around two percent. The total number of unemployed people amounted to around 270,000, marking a decrease of around four percent compared to the same period in twenty twenty-three.

On Saturday the 1st, citizens of the western town of Valjevo protested in front of its landfill for two hours because it was unkempt and a big health hazard. Citizens gathered in front of the landfill and blocked its access, drawing attention to the recent fires that broke out at the location because the waste was not correctly disposed of. They said that they had filed reports to the local government, handing over 4,000 signatures in favor of the landfill’s closure and rehabilitation, but to no avail. They are requesting an urgent reaction from the officials, and warned that the next step for them is a permanent blockade of the landfill.

Going back to energy for a bit, French electricity company Electricity of France, or EDF, announced last week that it is collaborating with the Serbian Ministry of Energy to develop nuclear energy in Serbia. The EDF said it had been working on the spatial plan for the construction of nuclear power plants for a while now, with its director stating that the project aims to help Serbia diversify its energy supplies.

The Ministry of Energy has been considering bringing back nuclear energy for a while now, in order to go greener and diversify its energy supplies, with the government lifting a moratorium on the ban on the use of nuclear energy last year.

Let’s wrap this edition with cultural news. From the 6th to the 17th of March, Belgrade will host the Irish film festival at the Yugoslav Film Archive, where it will screen many award-winning films from Irish directors such as Neil Jordan, a leading figure in Irish cinema, and movies featuring Irish actors.

For more information about the festival, check out the link in the show notes!

Aaand that’s it for this week! Thank you for joining us!

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Do daljnjeg, zbogom!